Mother of US naval yard gunman apologises to victims

The mother of the man blamed for Washington's Naval Yard mass shooting has apologised to his victims. Meanwhile, the relatives of people killed in previous mass shootings are begging Congress to get behind tougher gun laws.

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TIM PALMER: The mother of the man responsible for Washington's Navy Yard massacre has apologized to the families of his victims. As North America correspondent Jane Cowan reports, the relatives of those people killed in previous mass shootings are begging Congress to finally get behind tougher gun laws.

JANE COWAN: The shooter's mother, Cathleen Alexis, is struggling as much as anyone to make sense of what happened at the Navy Yard. Unable to offer answers, she's offered an audio statement saying her "heart is broken".

CATHLEEN ALEXIS: I don't know why he did what he did and I'll never be able to ask him why. Aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone and for that I am glad.

JANE COWAN: In the nine months since 20 six and seven-year-old school children were massacred in Sandy Hook, Connecticut another 8,000 Americans have died in gun violence.

Sandra Robinson's 18-year-old son Dino was killed in Chicago, standing on his grandmother's porch at five o'clock in the afternoon.

SANDRA ROBINSON: He did not deserve to be shot down like an animal. He had potential, but that was taken away from him and everybody want to talk about the Second Amendment right. What about our children? America loves animals more than they love humans. Shame on us!

JANE COWAN: The grieving mother is among a frightening large group of families who've lost loved ones to shootings and who are again in Washington to implore Congress to finally pass tougher gun laws.

SANDRA ROBINSON: I'm begging you all that you will get these pencils and pens in your hands and sign these bills! Who else needs to die before you get it?

JANE COWAN: But beneath the shock at the latest mass shooting, there's a creeping sense that this is a country going through the motions.

In his comments in the immediate aftermath of the violence at the Navy Yard, the US president Barack Obama offered brief condolences for the victims before pivoting back to his scheduled comments on the economy.

The subdued response is being seen as tacit acknowledgement there's no hope of reviving even the modest gun control measures that failed in the Senate in April under pressure from the powerful gun lobby.

The politics of gun control has become even more difficult in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, despite polls showing the vast majority of Americans support tougher gun laws.

The Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal.

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: Shootings in America are becoming the new normal. The risk is we accept the banality of this evil in our society.

JANE COWAN: Just days before the Navy Yard shooting, voters in Colorado, the scene of last year's Aurora Batman cinema massacre, threw out two state senators in a recall election because they'd supported laws requiring background checks and limiting the capacity of ammunition clips.

Californian congressman Mike Thompson is among those determined to have another go at passing gun control legislation.

MIKE THOMPSON: Ninety-one per cent of the American people believe in background checks. More people believe in background checks than "like vacations" and "believe in capitalism". So this would in fact pass and we cannot let up until it does.

And to my friends in majority who are refusing to bring this up for a vote, if you've got a better idea, damn it, show it to us!

JANE COWAN: As the debate plays out, more details are emerging about the shooter including unconfirmed reports he'd carved bizarre phrases into the barrel of his shotgun, including one that said "better off this way".